Real Science–Where are they now? The interstellar Voyager space probes

After spending nearly 11,000 workyears on the Voyager space program so far, or one-third of the estimated effort required to build the great pyramid at Giza, the Voyager space probes are currently in the “Heliosheath” – the outermost layer of the heliosphere where the solar wind is slowed by the pressure of interstellar gas, more than 17 billion kilometers from the Sun. Thirty-four years ago this past August 22, Voyager 2 was launched and a few weeks later on September 5, 1977 Voyager 1 was launched. Both spacecraft are still sending scientific information about their surroundings through the Deep Space Network (DSN), according to NASA.

The focus of the original mission for the Voyager probes was the exploration of Jupiter and Saturn. After making several discoveries there — such as active volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io and photographing the intricacies of Saturn’s rings — the mission was extended, with Voyager 2 going on to explore Uranus and Neptune–the only spacecraft to have visited those outer planets. The current mission–Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM)–is exploring the outermost edge of the Sun’s domain. In 2008 the probes were two of only a handful of objects that man had successfully sent beyond the edge of our solar system.

What the Voyager program did that no other program has done is send a distinct and comprehensive message to be intercepted at some point by a hopefully intelligent and friendly lifeform somewhere beyond our own solar system. The means was a gold record and record player. The gold record itself was affixed to the each probe and contained images and photos from Earth as well as a carefully selected group of music intended back in 1977 to reflect a broad range of world music, as well as spoken greetings in several languages. Then President Jimmy Carter’s voice can be heard on the album, stating: “This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.”

Back around 1998 my wife and I attended a superb Carl Sagan memorial concert by the Oregon Symphony, hosted by Sagan’s widow, Ann Druyan. It was a performance of key pieces from the Voyager space record – the very record that accompanied the original real Voyager space probes (and that inspired V’ger, the “villain” of Star Trek: The Motion Picture). The concert sought to answer the question: How do you select a limited sampling of the music of Earth for a recipient outside our universe? The music selected was quite diverse.

Back in the 1980s you could buy a limited box set that included the book Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record(an indispensable Voyager reference) as well as a CD of the complete music, languages and sounds and a CD-ROM of the photos included on the space record.

Probably the most incredible part of the Voyager album’s history? A sample of the isotope uranium-238 is electroplated on the record’s cover. Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years and it was hoped an intelligent civilization that encounters the record a billion years from now could use the remaining uranium to determine the age of the record, and hence, the time our civilization existed.

The ongoing journey of the Voyager probes can be tracked at NASA’s website.

Sagan’s Murmurs of Earth book and disc set is still available from time to time at Amazon from $100 on up for the deluxe set. The book alone is also available and is inexpensive despite being long out of print. Every school library should have the book and disc set as this is an incredible educational tool. What would you include on such a record to be sent to other worlds? This set also is interesting from a sociological perspective–it reflects what humans in the late 1970s viewed as important. It is the ultimate time capsule. Undoubtedly, the disc would look very different were it created today.